


Watch Your Tongue

by Garonne



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 09:59:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3130412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garonne/pseuds/Garonne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The morning after the night before, Bodie and Doyle have a difficult conversation within earshot of a dozen eavesdroppers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watch Your Tongue

Bodie was in that pleasant realm between sleep and waking, when a warm and cozy bed seemed like the best place in the world to be. Morning light was just beginning to filter through the curtains and into his consciousness. He could feel a warm hand tucked under his arm and a heavy leg flung across his thighs.

He was awake enough now to know the hand was Doyle's and so was the leg, Christ, Doyle was finally in his bed. Had spent the whole night there, even. His heart began to speed up a little again, just thinking back over the previous evening.

He was just starting to think about opening his eyes when the sudden ringing of the telephone shocked him wide awake. He fumbled for it.

"3.7?" said Cowley's voice, and Bodie groaned.

Doyle was sitting bolt upright beside him by now, and Cowley was telling him about an escort job he wanted them for, about Jax ending up in hospital this morning with a broken arm after some bizarre escapade or other, and Murphy spraining his ankle in the same circumstances. 

"Where's Doyle?" Cowley finished up.

"Here with me, sir," said Bodie without thinking.

Cowley seemed completely unperturbed by Doyle's presence in Bodie's bedroom first thing in the morning.

"Good. Be there ten minutes ago, both of you."

So here they were, sitting in a swanky hotel room in Belgravia, waiting for whatever business was going on the adjoining room to finish so they could escort Kalil and his entourage back to the airport in one piece.

They'd discussed routes and plans before they came in here, because they knew the room was bound to be bugged to high hell. The American and Israeli bugs had been cleared out this morning, presumably, when the room was swept, but God knew who else had been through here since. Both MI6 and Special Branch, certainly. At least they knew where the CI5 bugs were. They'd spoken to Jax and Murphy too, and got the rundown on what the two of them had had planned for the job.

Doyle had settled himself in one of the room's many armchairs, and was deep in a newspaper he'd nicked from the lounge downstairs on the way through. Bodie had taken the chair from the writing desk and dragged it to the window so he could straddle it and stare over the chair-back down into the street.

He was on edge, so wound up he felt like he was going to explode. They'd been dragged out of bed at the worst possible moment this morning. The phone rang just as they were waking -- just before they'd have looked each other in the face for the first time since finally falling asleep last night. He would have been able to read Doyle's eyes, see how he was taking it in the cold light of morning: maybe regret or embarrassment, maybe uncertainty and confusion, maybe just a horrible awkwardness. Maybe a slow, contented smile and a good-morning kiss.

Instead they'd tumbled out of bed in double-quick time, washed and dressed in near silence and rushed out the door.

"You all right?" Bodie said now.

Doyle didn't look up from his newspaper. 

"What?"

"You all right?"

"Yeah, course I'm... what?"

Doyle looked up and met his eye, and didn't seem to like what he read there. He scowled. Bodie saw Doyle's head turn, his gaze flicker round the room, picking out one or two of the bugs they knew about. Then he turned back to face Bodie, raising his eyebrows at him. 

You want to talk about this, _now_? he was clearly saying.

Bodie shrugged. He knew this wasn't the time or place to talk about anything but football or cars.

"Just wanted to know, that's all."

Doyle sighed, a long, drawn-out, overdone sound.

"Yeah, I'm fine, all right?"

He returned to his newspaper. He seemed oddly engrossed by an article about bus strikes in Newcastle. Hadn't changed the page in over a minute now. Bodie studied him, seeing him overlaid with the wild, fierce creature who'd been writhing in his bed last night. His eye ran over Doyle now, picking out details. The hand that rested casually on Doyle's knee, that yesterday had stroked Bodie till he trembled. The mop of curls -- he'd run his hands through it again and again last night. He knew Doyle hadn't had time to comb it this morning, not that that made much difference. The face now calm, unreadable, head bent over the newspaper.

Bodie scowled at him, hoping against all the odds to pick up some clue about how Doyle was feeling. But Doyle was at his coolest, his most unreadable. An unpleasant, uneasy feeling had settled in the pit of Bodie's stomach. He couldn't manage to forget that he was the one who'd taken the initiative last night, not Doyle. Not that Doyle hadn't seemed willing at the time, but what did that even mean? 

After a few minutes, he spoke up again.

"You seeing anyone this weekend?"

"Besides you, you mean? And Alpha, 3.6, 4.8, 2.7 -- "

Boyle cut across him, snappishly.

"All right, all right, knock it off. I meant, when this is all over. Next chance we get."

Doyle considered that for a moment, a small frown between his brows.

"No," he said finally.

He sounded thoughtful, quiet. Bodie couldn't read anything in the tone of his voice.

He scowled again and turned away, back to his post by the window. They weren't on stakeout, just waiting for Kalil to come out of the meeting, but some habits were deeply engrained.

For a while he passed the time idly watching the cars coming and going at the two other five-star hotels on the opposite side of the street.

"Lotus Elan just pulled up across the street," he reported.

Doyle lifted himself up in his seat just enough to see out the window.

"Nice."

"Drove one once. A mate in the army had one. Handles like a beaut. Think we could ever get the Old Man to expand the car pool a bit?"

Doyle snorted.

"Go ahead and try, mate."

They fell silent again after that. 

"Give us part of your paper," Bodie said after a few minutes.

"You can have the business section."

Bodie groaned.

"Oh come on, mate. Something else, eh? You've already read half it."

"Yeah, but the pages I've read are stuck to the pages I haven't, aren't they?"

"Look, 4.5 -- " he began, remembering even in his frustration to stick to call signs because of their many eavesdroppers.

Doyle sighed, peeled off a few sheets of newspaper and shoved them at Bodie.

Bodie moved his chair so that its back wasn't, dangerously, facing the window, and settled down to read. He didn't take in anything, though. After about a hundred attempts to read one page, he spoke up again.

"You doing anything -- when this is over?"

"I'm coming round to your place," Doyle said without looking up.

Bodie hadn't even realised there was such a great weight on his shoulders until he felt it roll off now.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Doyle looked up, and now he had a tiny, almost imperceptible grin on his face. "Worked out all right yesterday evening, didn't it? Might as well do the same again."

Bodie was grinning now. He sat back in his seat, posture smug.

"Fine by me, mate."

Their gazes met, and held. 

"Told you you'd like it," Bodie couldn't help adding, still smug.

Doyle laughed then, a loud clear sound.

"Didn't say I liked it, did I? Said it was all right."

"Oh, you liked it all right." 

Doyle shot him an exasperated look and returned to his newspaper. He was still smirking, though.

Bodie settled down to read too, suddenly finding an article about British Steel shares an awful lot more digestible than before.

For the next ten minutes there was silence in the room, broken only by the sound of traffic in the street outside and the almost imperceptible murmur of voices from the next room.

Tiring of reading again, Bodie laid aside his newspaper, stood up and stretched. He began to wander round the room, picking up and putting down ornaments.

"Not bad here, is it?"

Doyle grunted.

"How much do you think a suite like this costs per night?" Bodie persisted.

"'bout a week's wages, I'd say. Our wages."

"Think the Old Man'll hear of it if I drink something out of the bar?"

"Yeah." Doyle put his newspaper aside now too, and stretched in his chair without getting up. "But you can probably eat the little biscuits on the tea tray."

Bodie watched him stretch, eyes drawn to the little patch of white t-shirt that appeared at his waist. Shame it wasn't skin. He thought about Doyle coming back to his place that night, and the next night, and the next, and something prompted him to say:

"You still seeing that bird from the Queen Vic?"

Doyle didn't freeze, exactly, but his body posture changed ever so slightly, his stretch tensing into something else.

"Not since yesterday."

His voice contained a strange, flat note.

"Not since yesterday?" Bodie repeated, suddenly feeling off balance, one step behind. The comfortable atmosphere in the room had taken an abrupt turn for the worse.

Doyle was staring at him now, his eyes narrowed. For the first time since they'd got here, he looked unsure of himself. He didn't look cool any more -- didn't look like this was just a normal day for him anymore. Then he shrugged and turned away.

"Never mind. Forget it."

"No, what did you mean?"

"Piss off, 3.7, all right?" He slumped back in his seat, face still hard, not looking at Bodie. 

Bodie's heart gave a peculiar little thump then. He stared at Doyle, hardly daring to believe that he was interpreting this correctly.

"I'm not seeing Jeanine any more either," he said quickly. "Not since yesterday."

Doyle looked up at him, now, something relaxing in his face. He came slowly to his feet, staring at Bodie.

"Probably won't be seeing anyone, in fact," Bodie went on. "You know, in the foreseeable future."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, pretty much going to be living like a monk, I think." He paused. "You wanna join my monastery then?"

"Already have," said Doyle. He paused before adding, "And I'm warning you now, Bodie, you won't be able to get rid of me if you try."

His tone was still light, but his eyes were serious.

"Wasn't planning to."

"Good."

Finally, Doyle smiled. They stood there facing each other, and grinning at each other like idiots. Bodie felt giddy, and Doyle looked it. His mouth was so wide his eyes had crinkled into slits.

"Didn't know you felt so strongly about this," said Bodie.

"Oh, I feel strongly all right," Doyle said. "In fact, I -- "

"What?" said Bodie, though he was already following Doyle's gaze to one of the bugs they knew about, and he knew Doyle couldn't say anything more here.

Behind Doyle, the door to the adjoining room opened.

"I'll tell you tonight," he mouthed at Bodie as Kalil's entourage started to flood the room.

Bodie was looking forward to hearing it.


End file.
